Maxine Leeds Craig
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195152623
- eISBN:
- 9780199849345
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195152623.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter begins with a discussion of the two separate protests conducted during the Miss America pageant in September 1968: that of Women's Liberation members against beauty pageants, and the ...
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This chapter begins with a discussion of the two separate protests conducted during the Miss America pageant in September 1968: that of Women's Liberation members against beauty pageants, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's (NAACP) staging of the first Miss Black America pageant as a “positive protest” against the exclusion of black women from the Miss America title. It then discusses the social sources of resistance, value of social honor, and the multidimensionality of racial rearticulation. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.Less
This chapter begins with a discussion of the two separate protests conducted during the Miss America pageant in September 1968: that of Women's Liberation members against beauty pageants, and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's (NAACP) staging of the first Miss Black America pageant as a “positive protest” against the exclusion of black women from the Miss America title. It then discusses the social sources of resistance, value of social honor, and the multidimensionality of racial rearticulation. An overview of the subsequent chapters is also presented.
Jonathon S. Kahn
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195307894
- eISBN:
- 9780199867516
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195307894.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter argues that Du Bois's religious voice is at its best when it is devoted to reclaiming and recovering the spiritual strivings of black America. The pragmatists understand this project as ...
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This chapter argues that Du Bois's religious voice is at its best when it is devoted to reclaiming and recovering the spiritual strivings of black America. The pragmatists understand this project as one of natural piety, and natural piety represents a crucial religious virtue for pragmatic religious naturalism. Du Bois's uses a pragmatist's natural piety to construct a deep sense of racial loyalty that forms that heart of his understanding of black peoplehood and black nationalism. What's distinctive about Du Bois's natural piety is that he uses it to forge a black nationalism devoted to democratic participation and reform. Democracy, as Du Bois conceives of it, requires thick historical ties to race, or what Du Bois calls a “democracy of race”.Less
This chapter argues that Du Bois's religious voice is at its best when it is devoted to reclaiming and recovering the spiritual strivings of black America. The pragmatists understand this project as one of natural piety, and natural piety represents a crucial religious virtue for pragmatic religious naturalism. Du Bois's uses a pragmatist's natural piety to construct a deep sense of racial loyalty that forms that heart of his understanding of black peoplehood and black nationalism. What's distinctive about Du Bois's natural piety is that he uses it to forge a black nationalism devoted to democratic participation and reform. Democracy, as Du Bois conceives of it, requires thick historical ties to race, or what Du Bois calls a “democracy of race”.
Michael B. Boston
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780813034737
- eISBN:
- 9780813038193
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813034737.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This book offers a radical departure from other interpretations of Booker T. Washington by focusing on his business ideas and practices. More specifically, the book examines Washington as an ...
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This book offers a radical departure from other interpretations of Booker T. Washington by focusing on his business ideas and practices. More specifically, the book examines Washington as an entrepreneur, spelling out his business philosophy at great length and discussing the influence it had on black America. It analyzes the national and regional economies in which Washington worked and focuses on his advocacy of black business development as the key to economic uplift for African Americans. The result is a revisionist book that responds to the skewed literature on Washington, even as it offers a new framework for understanding him. Based upon a deep reading of the Tuskegee archives, the book acknowledges Washington not only as a champion of black business development but one who conceived and implemented successful strategies to promote it as well.Less
This book offers a radical departure from other interpretations of Booker T. Washington by focusing on his business ideas and practices. More specifically, the book examines Washington as an entrepreneur, spelling out his business philosophy at great length and discussing the influence it had on black America. It analyzes the national and regional economies in which Washington worked and focuses on his advocacy of black business development as the key to economic uplift for African Americans. The result is a revisionist book that responds to the skewed literature on Washington, even as it offers a new framework for understanding him. Based upon a deep reading of the Tuskegee archives, the book acknowledges Washington not only as a champion of black business development but one who conceived and implemented successful strategies to promote it as well.
Darby English
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780226131054
- eISBN:
- 9780226274737
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226274737.003.0001
- Subject:
- Art, Art History
This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book focuses two exhibitions that brought modernist painting and sculpture into the heart of United States cultural ...
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This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book focuses two exhibitions that brought modernist painting and sculpture into the heart of United States cultural politics: Contemporary Black Artists in America and The DeLuxe Show. Of the book's questions, the largest are simply, what did these exhibitions do to color, actually and conceptually? And how did this doing both reflect and affect the ways the larger culture was metabolizing color? The activities studied occurred at the fringes of modernist culture, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and revived a social dimension from which modernism had been almost fully decoupled. As a result they mattered in ways that will have to be reconstructed.Less
This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book's main themes. This book focuses two exhibitions that brought modernist painting and sculpture into the heart of United States cultural politics: Contemporary Black Artists in America and The DeLuxe Show. Of the book's questions, the largest are simply, what did these exhibitions do to color, actually and conceptually? And how did this doing both reflect and affect the ways the larger culture was metabolizing color? The activities studied occurred at the fringes of modernist culture, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and revived a social dimension from which modernism had been almost fully decoupled. As a result they mattered in ways that will have to be reconstructed.
Vijay Phulwani
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780813174907
- eISBN:
- 9780813174914
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Kentucky
- DOI:
- 10.5810/kentucky/9780813174907.003.0011
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
In this essay, Vijay Phulwani posits that Du Bois uses the language of tragedy in 1935’s Black Reconstruction in America to emphasize the constraints and limitations created by white supremacy and ...
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In this essay, Vijay Phulwani posits that Du Bois uses the language of tragedy in 1935’s Black Reconstruction in America to emphasize the constraints and limitations created by white supremacy and subvert the tragic legend of Reconstruction. Informed by his changing understanding of the role of slaves and freedmen in the Civil War and Reconstruction, Du Bois’s ideas moved from an emphasis on internal racial uplift and external political agitation to a theory of economic separatism and a strategic embrace of segregation. Du Bois returned to the subject of Reconstruction many times throughout his career, using it to rethink and further develop his ideas about the form and content of black politics. Phulwani argues that by continuing to analyze Reconstruction, Du Bois was able to simultaneously narrate its history and model alternative strategies for building black political and economic power.Less
In this essay, Vijay Phulwani posits that Du Bois uses the language of tragedy in 1935’s Black Reconstruction in America to emphasize the constraints and limitations created by white supremacy and subvert the tragic legend of Reconstruction. Informed by his changing understanding of the role of slaves and freedmen in the Civil War and Reconstruction, Du Bois’s ideas moved from an emphasis on internal racial uplift and external political agitation to a theory of economic separatism and a strategic embrace of segregation. Du Bois returned to the subject of Reconstruction many times throughout his career, using it to rethink and further develop his ideas about the form and content of black politics. Phulwani argues that by continuing to analyze Reconstruction, Du Bois was able to simultaneously narrate its history and model alternative strategies for building black political and economic power.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780804773997
- eISBN:
- 9780804777834
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9780804773997.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History
This chapter covers the density of links between black America in a decade of dramatic change and Britain at a critical transitional stage from a society of white hosts and black immigrants to one ...
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This chapter covers the density of links between black America in a decade of dramatic change and Britain at a critical transitional stage from a society of white hosts and black immigrants to one marked by a second generational multiculturalism. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the inflicting figure of black America's twentieth-century martyr. The movement of King in the United States became a resource for British blacks campaigning for equal access to jobs and housing. Malcolm X called King “a traitor to the Negro race.” He was also denied entry to France and returned to London “seething.” There were faces and voices of black anger and militancy in the media and in print. The American Black Power movement did not resonate only among London's African-Caribbean activists.Less
This chapter covers the density of links between black America in a decade of dramatic change and Britain at a critical transitional stage from a society of white hosts and black immigrants to one marked by a second generational multiculturalism. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the inflicting figure of black America's twentieth-century martyr. The movement of King in the United States became a resource for British blacks campaigning for equal access to jobs and housing. Malcolm X called King “a traitor to the Negro race.” He was also denied entry to France and returned to London “seething.” There were faces and voices of black anger and militancy in the media and in print. The American Black Power movement did not resonate only among London's African-Caribbean activists.
Bonnie J. Dow
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252038563
- eISBN:
- 9780252096488
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252038563.003.0002
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
This chapter analyzes national press coverage of the feminist protest at the 1968 Miss America Pageant, the event that put women's liberation on the national media map and that would have a ...
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This chapter analyzes national press coverage of the feminist protest at the 1968 Miss America Pageant, the event that put women's liberation on the national media map and that would have a continuing presence in print and broadcast interpretations of the movement. News reports about the events in Atlantic City feature the earliest appearance of many strategies for making sense of the movement—strategies that would reappear in national broadcast stories in 1970 along with film footage of the pageant protest that established its importance to feminism's public narrative. The chapter's discussion of the protest and its reverberations inside and outside the movement highlights an often overlooked aspect of the events of September 7, 1968: that the first Miss Black America Pageant, sponsored by the NAACP, was held the same night just down the boardwalk. The New York Times covered the two pageants in tandem, and the reading of that coverage focuses on reporters' early efforts to construct a narrative about the relationship between feminist and civil rights activism, an emphasis that would reappear in 1970's wave of national television reporting.Less
This chapter analyzes national press coverage of the feminist protest at the 1968 Miss America Pageant, the event that put women's liberation on the national media map and that would have a continuing presence in print and broadcast interpretations of the movement. News reports about the events in Atlantic City feature the earliest appearance of many strategies for making sense of the movement—strategies that would reappear in national broadcast stories in 1970 along with film footage of the pageant protest that established its importance to feminism's public narrative. The chapter's discussion of the protest and its reverberations inside and outside the movement highlights an often overlooked aspect of the events of September 7, 1968: that the first Miss Black America Pageant, sponsored by the NAACP, was held the same night just down the boardwalk. The New York Times covered the two pageants in tandem, and the reading of that coverage focuses on reporters' early efforts to construct a narrative about the relationship between feminist and civil rights activism, an emphasis that would reappear in 1970's wave of national television reporting.
Marilyn Halter and Violet Showers Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814760581
- eISBN:
- 9780814789254
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814760581.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This book chronicles the experiences of first and second generation West African immigrants and refugees in the United States during the last four decades. Drawing on field work and oral histories of ...
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This book chronicles the experiences of first and second generation West African immigrants and refugees in the United States during the last four decades. Drawing on field work and oral histories of West African immigrants aggregated in various locations from West Africa to the West Indies to destinations like metropolitan Atlanta, the book examines how significant segments of black America are forging new meanings and interpretive frameworks for understanding the paradigm of the Atlantic World. More specifically, it explores the transfiguration in the diversity and complexity of the role of the new West African diaspora in the recent history of the black Atlantic. It considers the intricate patterns of adaptation and incorporation among the immigrants and their children, along with the impact of the recent postcolonial and voluntary immigration of West Africans on the changing meanings of “African Americanness.” It also tackles issues of cultural identity formation and socioeconomic incorporation among immigrants and refugees from West Africa, and whether these migrants will become the newest African Americans.Less
This book chronicles the experiences of first and second generation West African immigrants and refugees in the United States during the last four decades. Drawing on field work and oral histories of West African immigrants aggregated in various locations from West Africa to the West Indies to destinations like metropolitan Atlanta, the book examines how significant segments of black America are forging new meanings and interpretive frameworks for understanding the paradigm of the Atlantic World. More specifically, it explores the transfiguration in the diversity and complexity of the role of the new West African diaspora in the recent history of the black Atlantic. It considers the intricate patterns of adaptation and incorporation among the immigrants and their children, along with the impact of the recent postcolonial and voluntary immigration of West Africans on the changing meanings of “African Americanness.” It also tackles issues of cultural identity formation and socioeconomic incorporation among immigrants and refugees from West Africa, and whether these migrants will become the newest African Americans.
Yuichiro Onishi
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814762646
- eISBN:
- 9780814762653
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814762646.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This book introduces the dynamic process out of which social movements in black America, Japan, and Okinawa formed Afro-Asian solidarities against the practice of white supremacy in the twentieth ...
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This book introduces the dynamic process out of which social movements in black America, Japan, and Okinawa formed Afro-Asian solidarities against the practice of white supremacy in the twentieth century. It argues that in the context of forging Afro-Asian solidarities, race emerged as a political category of struggle with a distinct moral quality and vitality. The book explores the work of black intellectual-activists of the first half of the twentieth century, including Hubert Harrison and W. E. B. Du Bois, who took a pro-Japan stance to articulate the connection between local and global dimensions of antiracism. Turning to two places rarely seen as a part of the black experience, Japan and Okinawa, the book also presents the accounts of a group of Japanese scholars shaping the black studies movement in post-surrender Japan and multiracial coalition-building in U.S.-occupied Okinawa during the height of the Vietnam War which brought together local activists, peace activists, and antiracist and antiwar GIs. Together these cases of Afro-Asian solidarity make known political discourses and projects that reworked the concept of race to become a wellspring of aspiration for a new society.Less
This book introduces the dynamic process out of which social movements in black America, Japan, and Okinawa formed Afro-Asian solidarities against the practice of white supremacy in the twentieth century. It argues that in the context of forging Afro-Asian solidarities, race emerged as a political category of struggle with a distinct moral quality and vitality. The book explores the work of black intellectual-activists of the first half of the twentieth century, including Hubert Harrison and W. E. B. Du Bois, who took a pro-Japan stance to articulate the connection between local and global dimensions of antiracism. Turning to two places rarely seen as a part of the black experience, Japan and Okinawa, the book also presents the accounts of a group of Japanese scholars shaping the black studies movement in post-surrender Japan and multiracial coalition-building in U.S.-occupied Okinawa during the height of the Vietnam War which brought together local activists, peace activists, and antiracist and antiwar GIs. Together these cases of Afro-Asian solidarity make known political discourses and projects that reworked the concept of race to become a wellspring of aspiration for a new society.
Christina M. Greer
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- September 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199989300
- eISBN:
- 9780199346332
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199989300.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, American Politics
Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream explores the political significance of ethnicity for new immigrant and native-born blacks. Utilizing ...
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Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream explores the political significance of ethnicity for new immigrant and native-born blacks. Utilizing an original survey of a New York City labor population and multiple national data sources, Black Ethnics concludes that racial and ethnic identities affect the ways in which black ethnic groups conceptualize their possibilities for advancement and placement within the American polity. The ethnic and racial dual identity for blacks leads to significant distinctions in political behavior, feelings of incorporation, and policy choices in ways not previously theorized. The steady immigration of black populations from Africa and the Caribbean over the past few decades has fundamentally changed the racial, ethnic, and political landscape in the United States. An important question for social scientists is how these “new” blacks will behave politically. With increases in immigration of black ethnic populations in the United States, the political, social, and economic integration processes of black immigrants does not completely echo that of native-born American blacks. The emergent complexity of black intraracial identity and negotiations within the American polity raise new questions about black political incorporation, assimilation, acceptance, and fulfillment of the American Dream. By comparing Afro-Caribbean and African groups to native-born blacks, this book develops a more nuanced and accurate understanding of the “new black America” coalition politics in the twenty-first century.Less
Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream explores the political significance of ethnicity for new immigrant and native-born blacks. Utilizing an original survey of a New York City labor population and multiple national data sources, Black Ethnics concludes that racial and ethnic identities affect the ways in which black ethnic groups conceptualize their possibilities for advancement and placement within the American polity. The ethnic and racial dual identity for blacks leads to significant distinctions in political behavior, feelings of incorporation, and policy choices in ways not previously theorized. The steady immigration of black populations from Africa and the Caribbean over the past few decades has fundamentally changed the racial, ethnic, and political landscape in the United States. An important question for social scientists is how these “new” blacks will behave politically. With increases in immigration of black ethnic populations in the United States, the political, social, and economic integration processes of black immigrants does not completely echo that of native-born American blacks. The emergent complexity of black intraracial identity and negotiations within the American polity raise new questions about black political incorporation, assimilation, acceptance, and fulfillment of the American Dream. By comparing Afro-Caribbean and African groups to native-born blacks, this book develops a more nuanced and accurate understanding of the “new black America” coalition politics in the twenty-first century.
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226389981
- eISBN:
- 9780226390000
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226390000.003.0004
- Subject:
- Anthropology, American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter discusses that many Harlemites have social relationships that extend across class lines and concerns class-stratified relationships among family members and friends to examine just how ...
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This chapter discusses that many Harlemites have social relationships that extend across class lines and concerns class-stratified relationships among family members and friends to examine just how class differences can inform and reshape important social contacts, sometimes ending friendships and straining familial ties, other times providing alternative spaces for mutually beneficial relationships to thrive despite class differences. If friendships are difficult to hold onto amid class differences, familial ties can be just as hard. Some people live fairly close to relatives of different classes or status positions and purposefully avoid them. Maybe the person who has achieved a bit of socioeconomic success does not want to feel the guilt of that success juxtaposed against other people's failure. Class-stratified interactions do not necessarily have to be substantive to be important and formative. Sometimes a fleeting moment or a brief encounter with a stranger or a series of short interactions with acquaintances can have tremendous significance in terms of how people think about class. Role models may be important, but that is not the only way class differences affect people's lives.Less
This chapter discusses that many Harlemites have social relationships that extend across class lines and concerns class-stratified relationships among family members and friends to examine just how class differences can inform and reshape important social contacts, sometimes ending friendships and straining familial ties, other times providing alternative spaces for mutually beneficial relationships to thrive despite class differences. If friendships are difficult to hold onto amid class differences, familial ties can be just as hard. Some people live fairly close to relatives of different classes or status positions and purposefully avoid them. Maybe the person who has achieved a bit of socioeconomic success does not want to feel the guilt of that success juxtaposed against other people's failure. Class-stratified interactions do not necessarily have to be substantive to be important and formative. Sometimes a fleeting moment or a brief encounter with a stranger or a series of short interactions with acquaintances can have tremendous significance in terms of how people think about class. Role models may be important, but that is not the only way class differences affect people's lives.
Yuichiro Onishi
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814762646
- eISBN:
- 9780814762653
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814762646.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This book explores how social movements in black America, Japan, and Okinawa formed Afro-Asian solidarities to fight white supremacy during the twentieth century, resulting in the emergence of race ...
More
This book explores how social movements in black America, Japan, and Okinawa formed Afro-Asian solidarities to fight white supremacy during the twentieth century, resulting in the emergence of race as a political category of struggle. It takes W. E. B. Du Bois's cue to look at race contact between black America and Japan as a theoretical, epistemic, and political challenge to examine four cases of transpacific strivings drawn from intellectual and radical political activities in black America, Japan, and Okinawa. It discusses the role of pro-Japan provocation in organizing the black “counterpublic sphere” in the United States and explains how this cross-racial alliance helped articulate the discourse of black radicalism and internationalism during the first half of the twentieth century. The book argues that the dynamism of the culture of liberation enabled the participants of Afro-Asian solidarity projects to move in what Du Bois calls a “racial groove,” and to revise the blueprint of black radicalism, one anchored on a meaning of human liberation that exceeded the boundaries of nations and modern political thought.Less
This book explores how social movements in black America, Japan, and Okinawa formed Afro-Asian solidarities to fight white supremacy during the twentieth century, resulting in the emergence of race as a political category of struggle. It takes W. E. B. Du Bois's cue to look at race contact between black America and Japan as a theoretical, epistemic, and political challenge to examine four cases of transpacific strivings drawn from intellectual and radical political activities in black America, Japan, and Okinawa. It discusses the role of pro-Japan provocation in organizing the black “counterpublic sphere” in the United States and explains how this cross-racial alliance helped articulate the discourse of black radicalism and internationalism during the first half of the twentieth century. The book argues that the dynamism of the culture of liberation enabled the participants of Afro-Asian solidarity projects to move in what Du Bois calls a “racial groove,” and to revise the blueprint of black radicalism, one anchored on a meaning of human liberation that exceeded the boundaries of nations and modern political thought.
- Published in print:
- 2001
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226389981
- eISBN:
- 9780226390000
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226390000.003.0003
- Subject:
- Anthropology, American and Canadian Cultural Anthropology
This chapter shows that an underclass/middle-class model of black America as two geographically segregated and bifurcated communities does not necessarily work in a place like Harlem. Harlemites at ...
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This chapter shows that an underclass/middle-class model of black America as two geographically segregated and bifurcated communities does not necessarily work in a place like Harlem. Harlemites at various socioeconomic levels live and work right next to one another every single day, a point that becomes salient in several short biographies of a few of the people whose voices are heard and whose experiences are shared throughout these pages. The chapter discusses the varied lives led by some of the Harlemites. These stories offer a picture of class diversity that is an important piece to the puzzle of performative raciality, a partial answer to the question of how race is seen through social practices. Despite patterned structural realities variously constraining the life chances of different categories of persons, class position is sometimes not a dead end. Important arguments about social mobility can get displaced in favor of sensationalist rhetoric of “underclass” imprisonment and “middle-class” alienation.Less
This chapter shows that an underclass/middle-class model of black America as two geographically segregated and bifurcated communities does not necessarily work in a place like Harlem. Harlemites at various socioeconomic levels live and work right next to one another every single day, a point that becomes salient in several short biographies of a few of the people whose voices are heard and whose experiences are shared throughout these pages. The chapter discusses the varied lives led by some of the Harlemites. These stories offer a picture of class diversity that is an important piece to the puzzle of performative raciality, a partial answer to the question of how race is seen through social practices. Despite patterned structural realities variously constraining the life chances of different categories of persons, class position is sometimes not a dead end. Important arguments about social mobility can get displaced in favor of sensationalist rhetoric of “underclass” imprisonment and “middle-class” alienation.
Felix L. Armfield
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252036583
- eISBN:
- 9780252093623
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252036583.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This chapter examines the NUL as Eugene Kinckle Jones penetrated the executive ranks of the National Conference of Social Work (NCSW)—he was, in fact, the first African American to be elected to the ...
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This chapter examines the NUL as Eugene Kinckle Jones penetrated the executive ranks of the National Conference of Social Work (NCSW)—he was, in fact, the first African American to be elected to the NCSW's Executive Board. In this capacity, he gained valuable resources for the further training of black social workers, as well as financial and educational support for his cause. The NCSW moreover provided a national and integrated audience for addressing the social woes of black America, particularly as Jones had begun to achieve national prominence by this time, and his speaking engagements had since grown beyond strictly social-work audiences. This chapter also documents Jones's other efforts at advancing the social cause, particularly during the Great Depression.Less
This chapter examines the NUL as Eugene Kinckle Jones penetrated the executive ranks of the National Conference of Social Work (NCSW)—he was, in fact, the first African American to be elected to the NCSW's Executive Board. In this capacity, he gained valuable resources for the further training of black social workers, as well as financial and educational support for his cause. The NCSW moreover provided a national and integrated audience for addressing the social woes of black America, particularly as Jones had begun to achieve national prominence by this time, and his speaking engagements had since grown beyond strictly social-work audiences. This chapter also documents Jones's other efforts at advancing the social cause, particularly during the Great Depression.
Sandra Jean Graham
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252041631
- eISBN:
- 9780252050305
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5622/illinois/9780252041631.003.0007
- Subject:
- Music, History, American
Stage productions of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) were a staple of theaters across the United States well into the twentieth century. In 1876, after jubilee troupes had ...
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Stage productions of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) were a staple of theaters across the United States well into the twentieth century. In 1876, after jubilee troupes had become a national craze, George Howard and his wife Caroline added a jubilee troupe to their stage production, setting off a new trend. Soon jubilee singers were a prerequisite for every “Tom” production. This chapter examines the role of black singers in the show, using Howard’s revision of George Aiken’s script as well as reviews, and lists the spirituals used in the initial productions. A symbiosis between Tom shows and jubilee troupes developed, with jubilee troupes increasingly adding ethnographic portrayals of slave life to their concerts. Soon other plays that had a more tangential relation to plantation life (or none at all) began incorporating jubilee singers. Meantime, the Hyers sisters and Elizabeth Hopkins mounted musical plays that incorporated spirituals as well as cultivated music. Minstrel managers attempted a new level of “verisimilitude” in theatrical representations of slave life and music, constructing outdoor plantations and holding performances in slave cabins and cotton fields, as well as on nearby stages.
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Stage productions of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) were a staple of theaters across the United States well into the twentieth century. In 1876, after jubilee troupes had become a national craze, George Howard and his wife Caroline added a jubilee troupe to their stage production, setting off a new trend. Soon jubilee singers were a prerequisite for every “Tom” production. This chapter examines the role of black singers in the show, using Howard’s revision of George Aiken’s script as well as reviews, and lists the spirituals used in the initial productions. A symbiosis between Tom shows and jubilee troupes developed, with jubilee troupes increasingly adding ethnographic portrayals of slave life to their concerts. Soon other plays that had a more tangential relation to plantation life (or none at all) began incorporating jubilee singers. Meantime, the Hyers sisters and Elizabeth Hopkins mounted musical plays that incorporated spirituals as well as cultivated music. Minstrel managers attempted a new level of “verisimilitude” in theatrical representations of slave life and music, constructing outdoor plantations and holding performances in slave cabins and cotton fields, as well as on nearby stages.
Courtney R. Baker
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- April 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780252039485
- eISBN:
- 9780252097591
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252039485.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
In the history of black America, the image of the mortal, wounded, and dead black body has long been looked at by others from a safe distance. This book questions the relationship between the ...
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In the history of black America, the image of the mortal, wounded, and dead black body has long been looked at by others from a safe distance. This book questions the relationship between the spectator and victim and urges viewers to move beyond the safety of the “gaze” to cultivate a capacity for humane insight toward representations of human suffering. Utilizing the visual studies concept termed the “look,” the book interrogates how the notion of black humanity was articulated and recognized in oft-referenced moments within the African American experience: the graphic brutality of the 1834 Lalaurie affair; the photographic exhibition of lynching, Without Sanctuary; Emmett Till's murder and funeral; and the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Contemplating these and other episodes, the book traces how proponents of black freedom and dignity used the visual display of violence against the black body to galvanize action against racial injustice. An innovative cultural study that connects visual theory to African American history, the book asserts the importance of ethics in our analysis of race and visual culture, and reveals how representations of pain can become the currency of black liberation from injustice.Less
In the history of black America, the image of the mortal, wounded, and dead black body has long been looked at by others from a safe distance. This book questions the relationship between the spectator and victim and urges viewers to move beyond the safety of the “gaze” to cultivate a capacity for humane insight toward representations of human suffering. Utilizing the visual studies concept termed the “look,” the book interrogates how the notion of black humanity was articulated and recognized in oft-referenced moments within the African American experience: the graphic brutality of the 1834 Lalaurie affair; the photographic exhibition of lynching, Without Sanctuary; Emmett Till's murder and funeral; and the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. Contemplating these and other episodes, the book traces how proponents of black freedom and dignity used the visual display of violence against the black body to galvanize action against racial injustice. An innovative cultural study that connects visual theory to African American history, the book asserts the importance of ethics in our analysis of race and visual culture, and reveals how representations of pain can become the currency of black liberation from injustice.
Andrew E. Kersten and Clarence Lang
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814785942
- eISBN:
- 9780814724477
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814785942.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
At one time, Asa Philip Randolph (1889–1979) was a household name. As president of the all-black Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), he was an embodiment of America's multifaceted radical ...
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At one time, Asa Philip Randolph (1889–1979) was a household name. As president of the all-black Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), he was an embodiment of America's multifaceted radical tradition, a leading spokesman for Black America, and a potent symbol of trade unionism and civil rights agitation for nearly half a century. But with the dissolution of the BSCP in the 1970s, the assaults waged against organized labor in the 1980s, and the overall silencing of labor history in U.S. popular discourse, he has been largely forgotten among large segments of the general public before whom he once loomed so large. Historians, however, have not only continued to focus on Randolph himself, but his role (either direct, or via his legacy) in a wide range of social, political, cultural, and even religious milieu and movements. This book gathers, for the first time, many genres of perspectives on Randolph. It seeks to avoid both hagiography and blanket condemnation alike. The book represents the diverse ways that historians have approached the importance of his long and complex career in the main political, social, and cultural currents of twentieth-century African American specifically, and twentieth-century U.S. history overall.Less
At one time, Asa Philip Randolph (1889–1979) was a household name. As president of the all-black Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters (BSCP), he was an embodiment of America's multifaceted radical tradition, a leading spokesman for Black America, and a potent symbol of trade unionism and civil rights agitation for nearly half a century. But with the dissolution of the BSCP in the 1970s, the assaults waged against organized labor in the 1980s, and the overall silencing of labor history in U.S. popular discourse, he has been largely forgotten among large segments of the general public before whom he once loomed so large. Historians, however, have not only continued to focus on Randolph himself, but his role (either direct, or via his legacy) in a wide range of social, political, cultural, and even religious milieu and movements. This book gathers, for the first time, many genres of perspectives on Randolph. It seeks to avoid both hagiography and blanket condemnation alike. The book represents the diverse ways that historians have approached the importance of his long and complex career in the main political, social, and cultural currents of twentieth-century African American specifically, and twentieth-century U.S. history overall.
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226298245
- eISBN:
- 9780226298269
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226298269.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
This book has attempted to demonstrate how pragmatism helps sort out some of the more troublesome conceptual problems confronting African American politics, and, in so doing, has emphasized the ...
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This book has attempted to demonstrate how pragmatism helps sort out some of the more troublesome conceptual problems confronting African American politics, and, in so doing, has emphasized the importance of experimentalism, asserted a profound faith in the capacities of everyday folk, and insisted that democracy be understood as a way of life. But its principle aim has been to clear the underbrush—to open the way for a more inspired form of African American politics animated by a profound commitment to democracy. The chapter holds the view that much of contemporary African American politics suffers from a woeful lack of imagination. In 2006, in conjunction with the State of the Black Union in Houston, Texas, Tavis Smiley, the powerful and prophetic African American media personality, released a book entitled The Covenant with Black America. The book emerged out of discussions about defining the agenda of black America and took up ten important issues confronting the nation's African Americans.Less
This book has attempted to demonstrate how pragmatism helps sort out some of the more troublesome conceptual problems confronting African American politics, and, in so doing, has emphasized the importance of experimentalism, asserted a profound faith in the capacities of everyday folk, and insisted that democracy be understood as a way of life. But its principle aim has been to clear the underbrush—to open the way for a more inspired form of African American politics animated by a profound commitment to democracy. The chapter holds the view that much of contemporary African American politics suffers from a woeful lack of imagination. In 2006, in conjunction with the State of the Black Union in Houston, Texas, Tavis Smiley, the powerful and prophetic African American media personality, released a book entitled The Covenant with Black America. The book emerged out of discussions about defining the agenda of black America and took up ten important issues confronting the nation's African Americans.
Gerald Horne
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780252041198
- eISBN:
- 9780252099762
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Illinois Press
- DOI:
- 10.5406/illinois/9780252041198.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This introductory chapter provides a background of Claude Barnett and the Associated Negro Press (ANP). Though not often recognized as such, Claude Barnett was one of the leading Pan-Africanists of ...
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This introductory chapter provides a background of Claude Barnett and the Associated Negro Press (ANP). Though not often recognized as such, Claude Barnett was one of the leading Pan-Africanists of the twentieth century, just as the ANP was an exemplar of the often discussed but little implemented doctrine of Pan-Africanism. Yet his very success carried the seeds of its demise; that is, as his anti-Jim Crow and anticolonial campaigns gained traction, it opened both Black America and Africa to incursions by mainstream entities that theretofore either had ignored these sizable communities or winked at their bludgeoning. Meanwhile, what ANP accomplished was to provide an assessment of the balance of global forces that historically had been essential in plotting the way forward for African Americans not least. Yet as the prize of anti-Jim Crow came within reach, ironically the way had been paved for the ultimate liquidation of the ANP.Less
This introductory chapter provides a background of Claude Barnett and the Associated Negro Press (ANP). Though not often recognized as such, Claude Barnett was one of the leading Pan-Africanists of the twentieth century, just as the ANP was an exemplar of the often discussed but little implemented doctrine of Pan-Africanism. Yet his very success carried the seeds of its demise; that is, as his anti-Jim Crow and anticolonial campaigns gained traction, it opened both Black America and Africa to incursions by mainstream entities that theretofore either had ignored these sizable communities or winked at their bludgeoning. Meanwhile, what ANP accomplished was to provide an assessment of the balance of global forces that historically had been essential in plotting the way forward for African Americans not least. Yet as the prize of anti-Jim Crow came within reach, ironically the way had been paved for the ultimate liquidation of the ANP.
Marilyn Halter and Violet Showers Johnson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814760581
- eISBN:
- 9780814789254
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814760581.003.0008
- Subject:
- History, African-American History
This book has explored the question of whether post-civil rights era immigrants from continental Africa are becoming the newest African Americans in the United States. It has shown that the ...
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This book has explored the question of whether post-civil rights era immigrants from continental Africa are becoming the newest African Americans in the United States. It has shown that the immigrants that comprise the new West African diaspora in America are very much communities in the making. In contrast to Eugene Robinson's argument that contemporary black America, including its cohort of emergent African immigrants, is seeped in the process of disintegration, the book sees the current dynamics as one of reintegration. The book concludes by reflecting on how West African immigrants are remaking what it means to be both African and American in the twenty-first century.Less
This book has explored the question of whether post-civil rights era immigrants from continental Africa are becoming the newest African Americans in the United States. It has shown that the immigrants that comprise the new West African diaspora in America are very much communities in the making. In contrast to Eugene Robinson's argument that contemporary black America, including its cohort of emergent African immigrants, is seeped in the process of disintegration, the book sees the current dynamics as one of reintegration. The book concludes by reflecting on how West African immigrants are remaking what it means to be both African and American in the twenty-first century.
